WWE SNME – 1/24/2026: Biggest Winners & Losers

This weekend marked the primary time since 1992 that WWE ran “Saturday Night’s Fundamental Event” without John Cena under contract. The show had loads to live as much as after the previous edition, and was packed to the brim with contenders’ matches, brawls, and a “for the last time” encounter between two of wrestling’s best.

As all the time, there have been loads of winners and many losers. The fastidious results page has already handled the literal winners and losers of the night, and the staff have also made their opinions known on the show, which leaves the metaphorical, allegorical, and all the opposite “-als” you may consider. Sometimes winners are losers, sometimes losers are winners, and sometimes things are exactly as they appear to be. Winners like Shinsuke Nakamura, Sami Zayn, or Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu, losers like Damian Priest, or AJ Styles, the primary SNME of 2026 had all of it.

Enough of my bloviating, let’s break down who got here out of Saturday’s show looking good, and who, well, didn’t.

Shinsuke Nakamura has been written off as functionally retired for many of his WWE run, with memetic choruses of “He’s just there to surf” ringing out anytime he underwhelms in an enormous match capability. I even have all the time respected Nakamura’s ability to choose up a paycheck for the bare minimum, but his ruse is up, as he proved on Saturday that he still has that dog in him.

The previous IWGP Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion turned on the classic Nakamura flair for his final match with AJ Styles. The 2 men had an elongated feud in 2018 that never achieved any acclaim near their 2016 Wrestle Kingdom classic. Finally, the 2 men have had a match worthy of their reputations in a WWE ring. Styles is heading off, either to retirement or to AEW, but Nakamura has proven that there are still ways to encourage him to greatness.

Now that I’ve said that, prepare for Shinsuke to once more get some form of weird, sudden push when WWE hopes to sign EVIL or SANADA after which have the push aborted the second someone puts pen to paper. But still, for now, it’s nice to know that version of Shinsuke Nakamura still exists in there, somewhere.

I believe AJ Styles is wise for foregoing a Triple H-scripted retirement run. If he goes to AEW, I believe he’ll slot in there pretty nicely. If he doesn’t, I believe he has a pleasant legacy to lean on.

But there’s something unquestionably hole concerning the middle ground between “unceremoniously released” and “grand retirement tour” that AJ Styles has landed on for his previous few weeks in WWE. If rumors are to be believed, he’ll likely be fed to Gunther, for the previous World Heavyweight Champion’s third retirement within the last calendar yr. It is a form of ignoble end for the “Phenomenal” one.

The match was good, and I’ve already mentioned the legacy Styles shall be forsaking him, but retiring within the doldrums of January, at an event in Saudi Arabia, just doesn’t feel right. Granted, John Cena retired on a random SNME in Washington DC, so that is par for the course for WWE, however it’s still an ungainly ending for one of the influential wrestlers of our young century.

Essentially the most memorable match of the night wasn’t even a match. It was a no-contest that saw two guys beat the hell out of one another around the world, until Drew McIntyre showed as much as throw someone off a ledge. For lack of a greater phrase, it f***ing ruled.

I had little or no interest in Cody Rhodes vs. Jacob Fatu before this brawl. I assumed it was going to be a slightly perfunctory win for Rhodes, as he gets his momentum back on the road to WrestleMania, but now I’m primed and prepared for whatever no rules fight these two must settle this unsettled rating. 

Rhodes is seemingly untouchable, but Fatu is vulnerable to losses, but I’m comfortable to see WWE grow a modicum of backbone with him. He’s just too good to be enhancement to Cody Rhodes. I still completely expect Rhodes to win the follow-up match, and the feud generally, but now there’s an inkling of hope that this shall be a breakout yr for Fatu. This might all be completely upended by the Royal Rumble, like so many things are, but Fatu is an imposing, hard-hitting foil to Rhodes’s white-meat babyface act. Here’s hoping to a pleasant long, violent feud.

Sami Zayn is on his approach to Riyadh as Number One Contender. Trick Williams is the newly-promoted former-NXT Champion with plenty to prove. Randy Orton is a seasoned veteran, who’s staring down the barrel of retirement and is fairly Teflon, win or lose. Damian Priest is just kinda there. The previous couple of years of Judgment Day drama worked out great for Rhea Ripley, and it turned out great for Dominik Mysterio, and Liv Morgan, but Damian Priest is now just eating pinfalls in order that Trick Williams doesn’t must.

He’s fallen in an almost-indefinable way. I can not actually determine the precise moment, possibly it was his middling World Heavyweight Championship reign, but all of the promise of Priest’s early days in WWE seems to have gone unfulfilled. He’s too likable to be a very good guy, and he’s too big and goth to be a babyface. If there weren’t already a complete stable of individuals trying, and failing, to accomplish that, I’d say that Priest should take a page from The Undertaker’s playbook. Alas, he’s stuck as a Big Evil version of himself, eating pins and cashing checks.

Sami Zayn just might do it. He’s a living legend in Saudi Arabia, and Drew McIntyre is vulnerable to being humiliated in big match world title situations. Sami Zayn might just be WWE Champion by this time next week.

Zayn didn’t exactly go into SNME as an underdog, but with two easy pinfalls in Trick Williams and Damian Priest, it felt like Randy Orton was one or two RKOs from punching his ticket to Riyadh. But Sami Zayn did the near-impossible and bested Randy Orton on a show run by Paul Levesque. Obviously, Zayn may very well be ready to actually get some heat on Drew McIntyre. Crushing Zayn’s dreams in Saudi Arabia would definitely cement his status as a heel world champion.

But for now, the skies are clear, the Rumble venue has been suspiciously finished being in-built record time, and Zayn may very well be just days away from finally becoming a world champion in WWE. If he does, especially in Riyadh, the ovation goes to be considered one of the largest pops within the history of this weird little artform all of us follow.